I heard about the Market Club from my neighbor in Land Park a year or so ago but never got around to going there until recently. The restaurant is within walking distance from my house, too. It's a little scary looking for some people's tastes -- nestled in the middle of the produce shipping yard between Broadway and McClatchy on Fifth Street. This is an area filled with industrial buildings and dusty parking lots. Not the sort of place the public typically wanders around.
However, if you go there at lunch, you'll find business guys in suits mixing with truck drivers, produce workers and people who look like they could be homeless. The Market Club also serves breakfast. Its lunch specials change from day to day, and whether you dine there for lunch or breakfast, your plate will be piled with food bigger than your head. To say the portions are generous is an understatement.
To get there, you'll head south from Broadway and make a right into the second gate for the produce yard. If you cross the railroad tracks, you went too far. Drive past the rows of produce trucks and modular buildings about halfway into the yard. Stop, look to your left, and you'll see it. The place features a shoehorn counter with bar stools and tables are over to the left. The restaurant is packed every day with customers, and looks like it hasn't changed one bit for the past 40 years. It's a blast from the past.
You can order hamburgers, cheeseburgers, broasted chicken, pork chops, short ribs or corned beef and cabbage for lunch, depending on the day. Breakfast is the usual greasy spoon affair -- omelets, eggs any way you like 'em, potatoes and toast, sides of bacon, ham or sausage or, on certain days, fried rice. If you're dying for Spam, that delicious canned creation (Yuck, I had to eat that stuff as a kid and ick) from Austin, Minnesota, you might want to order spam and eggs.
I ordered the four-egg cheese omelet with a side of bacon and my husband ordered corned beef hash. We arrived about 11 AM on Sunday and managed to squeeze into the counter crowd. By 11:45 AM, our food had not yet arrived. I waived at the waitress who brought me a plate piled high with bacon. Shortly before noon, my breakfast omelet was delivered. My husband's, however, was missing.
"Sorry, hon," the waitress said, "But we're out of corned beef hash."
My husband was livid that he had to sit there for an hour without being informed that his breakfast choice was unavailable.
"I can get you something else," the waitress offered. She did not offer an apology.
My husband replied that he'd just as soon sit there {and fume) while I ate my omelet. I don't blame him for being irritated, but I probably would have ordered something else than go without breakfast.
The omelet was great, buttery smooth and extremely cheesy, almost too much cheese. In fact, it was like eating a pound of cheese, but I happen to like cheese. I would go there for lunch, too, but I'll have to find somebody else to be my lunch date because my husband won't go back.
- The Market Club is located at 2630 Fifth Street.
- 916.498.9953
- Open 5:30 to 1:30 Monday through Friday
- Sunday: 6:30 to 11:30 AM
- No credit cards.
Photos: Elizabeth Weintraub
The Short Sale, by Elizabeth Weintraub, coming from Archer Ellison in January 2009.
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